Your Body Makes Its Own Master Antioxidant — Here's Why It Stops.

Your body makes its own master antioxidant — but after 40, production drops every year and most people never know it's low until something breaks. Dr. Axe walks through the clinical evidence, the exact blood marker hiding on your last lab panel, and a 4-step protocol to rebuild glutathione at the cellular level — without expensive IVs. Resources Mentioned: https://guide.thehealthinstitute.com/l-390

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Josh Axe?

  Most people are trying to raise glutathione backwards. They're buying expensive IVs, they're taking N-acetylcysteine, they're swallowing glutathione capsules. But the real question isn't how much glutathione you can put into your body. It's whether your cells can make it and recycle it. And in one small trial at Baylor University, older adults had dramatically less glutathione than younger adults and several times more oxidative damage. Then researchers gave them two inexpensive amino acids for 16 weeks. The glutathione came back completely. So did their mitochondrial function. So did their walking speed, their insulin sensitivity.

• 0:42Josh Axe?

  And all of the participants felt younger and looked younger. So today, I'm going to walk you through five things. What glutathione actually does, the five places you're going to feel it the most, how to know if yours is actually low or in optimal ranges, and which supplements and foods actually rebuild it, along with my four-step plan for raising it without wasting money. And stay with me because one of the most useful markers is probably already sitting in your latest blood test. And most people never look at it. Welcome to the Dr. Axe Show.

• 1:31Josh Axe?

  I am super excited to announce that Heal Your Cells is now officially live. This isn't a trendy health book. It's a resource you'll come back to for years. And I truly believe the future of healthcare is cellular health. And this book is where you learn how to build and maintain that foundation. If you've watched this show for a while and my content has helped you in any way, I'd really appreciate your support on this book launch. You can grab your copy today at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you get your books. You'll also get hundreds of dollars in free bonus material when you enter your email at healyourcells.com. Again, that's healyourcells.com. Thank you so much for your support. I'm so grateful for you.

• 2:15Josh Axe?

  If you're dealing with toxin overload, autoimmune disease, fatigue, hormone imbalance, or aging more quickly than you want to, then you might be missing the number one supplement that can actually improve your health. It's a lesser known compound that has incredible benefits for your body. That compound is a tri-peptide called glutathione. Now here's why glutathione is so important. It helps reverse your cellular age. It literally makes you younger. Here's how it works. Think about this. If you take the bite out of an apple and set it on the counter, what happens within minutes? The flesh starts turning brown. That's oxidation, the same chemistry that rusts metal.

• 2:59Josh Axe?

  And that exact same process is running inside your cells right now. It's called oxidative stress. And it's one of the number one hallmarks of aging. And it's one of the primary reasons why your body ages and why you start to feel joint pain, your metabolic health slows down, and you start to age more quickly. And your number one protection against that is the antioxidant called glutathione. Glutathione is your master antioxidant. And you want to think of it as the skin of an apple, right? The skin of an apple protects the apple flesh because it is so rich in antioxidants.

• 3:40Josh Axe?

  And it is like a living antioxidant coat covering the apple. Well, think about glutathione the same way. It is an antioxidant coating and protective mechanism that protects every cell in your body from browning and aging. You know, I want to share with you a patient I had a few years ago and how they experienced an incredible breakthrough. Because we started using a product called Glynac or a form of glutathione. This was a patient that was struggling with really extreme rosacea to where, you know, almost cysts all over her face. And really, it was to the point where she didn't want to go out in public because the rosacea was so bad all the time. And after years of flare-up, she literally tried everything topical. She tried antibiotics, elimination diets, and nothing helped.

• 4:25Josh Axe?

  Here's what we started doing though. I started saying, you know what? I think there's a bigger issue going on in your environment. We did blood work and I found this marker, GGT, was in normal range according to one of her doctors, but it wasn't optimal. And so we started supplementing with glutathione. And here's what's amazing. Is it cleared up by about 98% in eight weeks. And I knew in order for it to heal, we would have to focus on the root cause. So we stopped chasing the skin, started supporting glutathione and the precursors, and also changed up her diet, had her start doing some more glutathione-boosting foods, along with taking a Glynac supplement. And the rosacea reversed almost completely.

• 5:08Josh Axe?

  She said about 98% improvement. And here's the way you want to think about it. Her skin was like a smoke alarm. And listen to this study. This is, this is pretty impressive. This was taking a supplement called N-acetylcysteine, known as NAC. This is the precursor to glutathione, which we'll get into. But this was a human study done on 12 individuals. And they used a N-acetylcysteine-based compound. And 90% of rosacea patients improved. 70% had less redness. And inflammatory lesions fell by about 43% in just four weeks. This is four weeks only. 90% of them saw results. And that's because oftentimes glutathione with certain conditions

• 5:51Josh Axe?

  can reduce inflammation because it's the number one thing that reduces oxidative stress. And one of the biggest things that causes inflammation is this oxidative stress on the body. So when you can protect your cells with glutathione, like that apple peel, imagine that protecting all of your cells in body, that can put out the inflammation or quench the fire. And here's what glutathione is and surprises a lot of people. It is a peptide, right? Peptides are all the rage today. People are talking about peptides. There's a lot of peptides out there that we've been using for years that are incredibly effective. Of course, you're familiar with collagen peptides. Or what about insulin? Or what about creatine? These are all forms of peptides. Well, glutathione is known as a tri-peptide. It's made up of three amino acids.

• 6:37Josh Axe?

  Glutamate, cysteine, and glycine. And the latter two, your body typically needs in larger amounts in order to create glutathione. So cysteine is typically the most important one, followed by glycine. Now again, most of us have plenty of glutamate. You don't need to worry about that. But cysteine basically was what allows your body to get through that bottleneck. And it carries the sulfur that does the actual work of putting glutathione together. And then glycine, which almost nobody talks about, turns out to matter way more than we thought the more we're digging into the clinical science and understanding glutathione. And what makes glutathione so unique and powerful is that most antioxidants you get in your body are single-use, right? So there's some sort of oxidative stress.

• 7:22Josh Axe?

  Your body eats up that antioxidant and it's gone. Or it oxidizes and then it passes out of the body. Glutathione, what's so unique about it is it can be used multiple times. It basically gets used up and then recycled over and over again. And it neutralizes the damage. And then it gets converted to a spent form. And then there's an enzyme in the body that can just flip it back on and it can be used again. Which is why you can't supplement your way past a factory problem. The healthiest cell isn't the one with the most glutathione. It's the one making and recycling the most glutathione. And you can see here with me again, basically there's GSH, right? Glutathione, which then turns into GSSG,

• 8:07Josh Axe?

  which is the spent glutathione. And then in order to recycle it, by the way, there are certain things your body needs. And this is why when I work with patients, I don't typically ever just say, take this single supplement. In fact, I've never done that in my entire career. What I do is I put together a full protocol for fixing machinery. So for instance, when I had the patient come in and she was experiencing chronic rosacea and she was able to completely turn that around after seeing doctors for 10 years and, and really almost ruining her life. It was so severe for her, she shared this with me. I said, okay. I'm seeing from your blood work, you need more glutathione. But I'm not just going to give you, it's sort of this old, you remember Maimonides, he has this lesson,

• 8:50Josh Axe?

  you know, give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. That same thing, right? I want to teach your body and help your body, create glutathione on its own and put together a full glutathione boosting protocol. So you can fully and completely heal. Now, part of that was taking a type of N-acetylcysteine plus glycine as supplement. But in addition, I had her take other types of food. I also looked at blood work and there were other nutrients she was deficient in, like vitamin B2 and selenium and magnesium, which are all required for glutathione recycling. And so it's not just about glutathione by itself.

• 9:31Josh Axe?

  It's about making sure your body has all the things it needs for running its glutathione factory. And by one of the reasons why this is important, and you might notice as you age, certain conditions, you just can't seem to beat, right? It could be the joint pain, it could be histamine reactions, autoimmune disease, some other health problem where you just feel like you're aging, like your skin, you're noticing it changing more quickly. The problem is there are certain things your body becomes less adequate at producing as you age, right? And I remember I used to talk about this a lot and I still talk about it sometimes with collagen, right? It's a peptide as well. Over time, your body creates less peptides on its own, collagen breaks down more every single year. The very same thing happens with this peptide glutathione. It drops every single year.

• 10:14Josh Axe?

  Now, there was a study done at Baylor College of Medicine, and it ran a direct comparison, adults in their seventies against adults in their twenties and thirties. And here's what they found. Not just less glutathione, but far more damage was happening to the body because they had less glutathione. So it wasn't about, oh, you just have less glutathione now. Cause on average, they had about 70% less glutathione in their blood, these people that were 70 years old. They also saw some of the most important blood markers. By the way, one of my favorites, it's called F2 isoprostanes. And this is looking at oxidative stress done to your fat cells. So think about all your cells have a lipid bilayer as well.

• 10:57Josh Axe?

  So this is, this is fat and cellular membrane oxidative stress. Well, in these people, there was over 300% more oxidative stress in 70 year olds. Was showing that their glutathione needs to be so much higher as you age. And I see a lot of women today online talking about wearing certain types of skincare and doing certain things as you age. And by the way, I think you should be doing that. I think that's wonderful. We should all be trying to slow down the aging process and honor God with our body, right? It's the temple of the Holy Spirit. We're called to do everything we can in order to age more slowly. And I do think having the right skincare ingredients is helpful.

• 11:36Josh Axe?

  However, one thing I don't see a lot of people talking about in the anti-aging community is glutathione. And it honestly might be the single most impactful antioxidant or supplement you could take at slowing down the aging process, especially for any of you that are dealing with autoimmune disease or toxicity damage. Because glutathione, again, it's known as your body's master antioxidant. And it's used by the liver for detoxification. So if you're deficient in glutathione, your body is typically aging more quickly. Again, think about the skin of the apple.

• 12:17Josh Axe?

  If you, if you remove the skin of the apple, that apple immediately starts aging. Likely 10 times, even 100 times faster than without the apple skin. Well, think about your body in the same way. If you are depleted in glutathione, you are aging more quickly. If you ever noticed, you know what? I feel like the past two years, I started looking older, I started feeling older. It could be a glutathione issue. Now, I want to bring you some clinical evidence and a study that proves these benefits. There is a 16 week study where patients supplemented with the main two amino acids that help create glutathione. And when they use these two amino acids, total glutathione increased in the body by 225%

• 13:00Josh Axe?

  and active glutathione by 259%. And in the placebo group, it didn't change. Here are the benefits people saw in the study. They saw better mitochondrial function in lab work. They had lower levels of inflammation, improved insulin resistance, and they were even faster at walking. They actually saw improved athletic performance. And that's because glutathione is also critical for recovery. So, so a few benefits, let's dive deeper into, okay? Number one, it keeps your mitochondria from cooking themselves. Your mitochondria burn fuel with oxygen, okay? However, when your mitochondria are burning up this oxygen,

• 13:40Josh Axe?

  it puts, it creates something called reactive oxygen species or reactive oxygen. And it kind of sprays out of your cells like an exhaust. Now, what takes care of that exhaust? It's glutathione. If your cells are running low in glutathione, the exhaust from making cellular energy never gets cleaned up and it's going to damage every organ and tissue in your body. And it's going to cause you to age prematurely. Because glutathione, again, is your body's master antioxidant. Oxidative stress, that's what it does. Benefit number two, it helps your liver finish the job. Detox isn't a juice cleanse, okay? It's a two-stage chemical process in your liver.

• 14:24Josh Axe?

  Stage one takes a toxin and makes it reactive, often more dangerous than it started. Stage two sticks that toxin to glutathione, making it water soluble, so your body can get rid of it. If stage one is running hot, we call this phase one of liver detoxification, where your body is eliminating or transforming some of these toxins that are in your body. But if your body is not prepared in stage two, you end up with a backlog. And that's the real mechanism behind chemical sensitivity. And even things like rough hangovers in the body, if you've ever experienced that, is that phase one of your body might've been working fine. And then it gets backed up typically because you don't have enough glutathione. Benefit number three, glutathione, your immune cells.

• 15:09Josh Axe?

  Here's the thing, they can't live without it. When a threat appears, your T cells and natural killer cells must divide fast, okay? That replication generates huge oxidative stress. Cells that can't handle that stress don't divide well. Glutathione is what lets them do it. It's why one person catches everything and their spouse, same house, same food, doesn't. So if you're wondering, why am I getting sick all the time? Sometimes it's not vitamin C, sometimes it's not zinc, sometimes it's not vitamin D. Sometimes you're deficient in the single most important antioxidant in your body. Again, we talk about vitamin C, listen, that's critically important.

• 15:51Josh Axe?

  Glutathione, just as important or more important in certain cases when it comes to supporting your immune cells. There is a study done on patients who took a liposomal glutathione supplement for two weeks. Here's what they found. Natural killer cell activity increased by 400%. Lymphocyte proliferation by 60%. And oxidative stress damage went down by 35%. Now, the number four benefit of glutathione has to do with your brain and neurological health. Your brain is about 2% of your body's weight. And it burns about 20% of your oxygen.

• 16:30Josh Axe?

  It's packed with fats that oxidize easily and it has limited capacity to repair. It is structurally the worst designed organ for oxidative stress in your entire body and it needs the most protection. So brain glutathione isn't a nice to have. It's essential and potentially important for even preventing things like Alzheimer's long-term. There's a study done on those who supplemented with sulforaphane, which is found in broccoli, sprouts and certain types of cruciferous vegetables, that when people consume more of those types of vegetables, their brain glutathione raised by roughly 30% on an MRI. The number five benefit of glutathione is anti-aging. Two of the best predictors of how long somebody will live has to do with their grip strength and their walking speed.

• 17:16Josh Axe?

  In a Baylor study, people that used a supplement, this is for supporting glutathione, it's called Glyknac, it's glycine placentacetyl cysteine. They actually improved their walking speed and their grip strength with no dietary change, simply by only taking Glyknac. And so the top five benefits of using glutathione are number one, mitochondrial energy, okay? More power, less damage happening from that. Number two, liver detoxification. It is essential for you to detox and heal from everything from infections like parasites to overcome, you know, long COVID. And of course, getting rid of things like glyphosate in your body. Number three, immune function, whether it be autoimmune disease

• 18:00Josh Axe?

  or just strengthening your own immune system to fight the common cold and flu. Number four, brain protection. And number five, anti-aging.

• 18:10Josh Axe?

  Here are the four words people say to us most often. This finally makes sense. Years of scattered symptoms, random supplements, diets that have worked for a little while, but ultimately fell to the wayside. For many, it's the first time somebody has actually shown them the cellular pattern behind their symptoms. And that's what a cellular blood work analysis is for. It's an at-home kit, followed by a full hour with one of our senior health advisors, who will explain exactly what's going on in your cells. And if one of our cellular healing protocols is right for you. And we have hundreds of five stars on TrustPilot that say the same. If you're ready for it to finally make sense, go to mybloodwork.com and order your kit today. That's mybloodwork.com.

• 18:58Josh Axe?

  So you might wonder, well, how do I know where my glutathione levels are at? Well, one thing you can look at is your symptoms, right? If you're dealing with fatigue and especially poor recovery, you just feel like your body doesn't recover very quickly. That's a big warning sign. Number two, brain fog. Okay. If you are dealing with just feeling like your, your head is cloudy, sometimes losing words or just short-term memory, that's an indicator. Number three, chemical sensitivity to perfume, to fuel, to alcohol, just sensitivities to things. But typically if glutathione were there to protect your body in the first place, that wouldn't be happening. Number four, again, frequent illness catching everything going around. Number five, high oxidative stress on your labs. If you're seeing those in lab markers,

• 19:41Josh Axe?

  that's a big indicator that your glutathione is low. The number one lab marker, by the way, you've probably been tested for. I mean, it is a standard lab test looking at what we call GGT. That's gamma glutamil transferase. And here's the problem, though. Listen to this, this is a big deal. It's on nearly every liver panel out there today. When you get your blood work done, again, look for it, GGT. However, here's the big problem. Your doctor is looking at it in the range for severe liver disease. Right? So they're looking to see, oh, is, are the numbers so bad? You're about to die. They're not looking at that marker for optimal health or longevity. So if you're dealing with autoimmune disease or rosacea,

• 20:24Josh Axe?

  or you know, you're aging more quickly, they're not going to tell you that because they're not reading your blood work in that way. And so most labs consider GGT, this again glutathione marker, they consider it to be normal around 60. But for longevity and lower oxidative stress, the optimal range is closer to 10 to 20, ideally under 20 for men and under 15 for women. And GGT doesn't directly measure glutathione, but rising levels that signal greater oxidative stress, knowing that you have greater glutathione demand. And in a study done on nearly 300,000 participants,

• 21:03Josh Axe?

  a GGT around 14.5 represented the lowest risk reference point for people. And they discovered in this study, when men got up closer to that 60 marker, they had a 31% higher risk of dying, a 43% higher risk of dying of cardiovascular disease. Now, why cardiovascular disease? Well, your cells in your heart, there's a lot of mitochondria there. Right? And the other one is, listen to this, a 225% higher liver-related mortality rate. If somebody had high GGT markers. So the reality is, listen, your doctor, you might be at 50. Okay. And your doctor says, listen, your blood work's good. You're good to go. But you should be at 14.5 for optimal function.

• 21:46Josh Axe?

  This is why there is such a chasm today between conventional blood work and the way that I read blood work and the panels and markers I do, and what most conventional doctors do. They're not looking to get you healthy. They're just trying to keep you barely alive. And so knowing your glutathione is really important. Now, let me go through a few glutathione markers. The biggest is this GGT, right? You're going to find it on any liver panel. It's, it's a really, really important marker and it's, it's an inexpensive marker. It's not expensive to get this done. Another one that I really like is called F2 isoprostanes. This is the gold standard test for fat oxidation. So think about all your cells are made of fat. Your brain is fat. It's important for certain organs. So all that being said, if your fat is oxidizing,

• 22:31Josh Axe?

  your risk of heart disease and just generally aging more quickly goes up dramatically. So this F2 isoprostanes is a really, really great marker to look at for, again, it's known as the gold standard test for oxidative stress. And those are two of the biggest. A few others, though, that can be helpful. GSH to GSSG ratio, it's looking at a ratio. That's showing how well your body is recycling glutathione. Another marker, selenium and magnesium. Knowing what your selenium is, because selenium actually helps create glutathione. Magnesium does as well. And there's another, this is a urine test. It's called 8OHDG. And this is actually looking to the damage to the DNA itself.

• 23:14Josh Axe?

  But this is something that glutathione helps protect against. And those are the five markers that are probably the most helpful in discovering what your glutathione levels actually are. Hey, and by the way, if you want an entire guide, by the way, on exactly how to detoxify and support your glutathione levels, I actually have an entire guide for you in my show notes. I also have another guide you can check out. It is my top 25 blood markers guide. You can download there as well. If you, if you want to know, well, I've had blood tests done before. I want to see if I'm in the functional medicine range. These are guides I put together. It's over a hundred dollars in value and you can get it for free. If you just go to the show notes, you can download these PDFs for no charge at all.

• 23:55Josh Axe?

  Just my gift to you because I want to help you reach your ultimate level of health. Because I want to bring the truth, because you know, these are things that I think about my mom growing up. Like my mom, I know from looking at her labs over the years, she was deficient glutathione. And no doctor ever told her that. I think about, could we have prevented her getting cancer, helped her heal more readily if we were actually looking at the right markers? So the reality is getting the right markers and also just knowing how to raise your glutathione levels is critically important. So I would encourage you, go to the show notes and get the free guide I put together for you right there. Now, I want to talk about glutathione supplements because there's, there's a lot of different types out there. And I want to talk about which ones are most effective and what I most recommend. Okay. So the first thing here is, is looking at standard glutathione versus liposomal. Right?

• 24:39Josh Axe?

  I saw a post once saying supplementing with glutathione was pointless. Uh, because your gut breaks it apart. Then there was a six-month placebo trial that actually proved that it actually worked modestly and measurably, though taking a liposomal form is going to be more effective. Okay. What liposomal means is that glutathione is wrapped in fat to survive your digestive tract. And so it survives your stomach acid. It can actually get to the area it needs to in order for you to receive the benefit. So I do think liposomal glutathione has lots of benefits. You want to do about a thousand milligrams a day. You know, you can store up to about 30 to 35% of glutathione in your body over six months.

• 25:24Josh Axe?

  So that's the good news is your body can store some of this as well. Now, the number two supplement, which is my second favorite is NAC. That's known as enacetyl cysteine. And NAC doesn't give you glutathione. It gives your cells cysteine that helps your cells build glutathione on their own. And enacetyl cysteine is the standard hospital antidote for acetaminophen overdose and has been used for about 50 years. So think about that, this is an alternative medicine. This is used in the hospital today. If you take too much Tylenol, they give you glutathione, they give you enacetyl cysteine. That is the cure. That is the cure for toxin overload. You know, a Tylenol overdose kills the liver by burning through its glutathione. That's how it kills the liver.

• 26:07Josh Axe?

  Refills the tank fast enough to save the organ. That's how this central pathway actually works. You know, the typical range of enacetyl cysteine is anywhere from typically 600 milligrams daily to around 3,000 milligrams daily. Of course, hospital protocols run much higher than that. But of course, for daily use, it's about that 600 milligrams. I would say around 2,400 milligrams for most people. And then my favorite glutathione supplement is Gly-NAC. It's glycine, which remember there's, there's three amino acids are important. Glutamate, which your body has plenty of. And then it's cysteine and glycine. So with Gly-NAC, you're getting glycine plus enacetyl cysteine.

• 26:50Josh Axe?

  You're getting both of those key amino acids that your body needs to make glutathione. And what they found is most people are deficient in cysteine. Okay. It's, it's part of the bottleneck. But as adults age, many adults are running short on glycine as well. And when you get both, your cellular assembly line can now produce glutathione at the optimal levels. Now, I do want to mention there's an optimal dose in people that were looking to heal from chronic illness. And these are very, these are higher doses. It was seven grams of glycine a day and seven grams of enacetyl cysteine every day. And here's the reality, most capsules and supplements today hold about a 10th of that. So if you're dealing with an extreme condition and you want to see results really fast,

• 27:34Josh Axe?

  you can do higher doses for multiple months to see those results faster. Now, here's what I found in patients. You can do a lower dose and your body will eventually get to the point where it has enough stored up where you don't need to do a higher dose and you can then lower the dose. But if you're dealing with a chronic issue like again, severe rosacea or autoimmune disease, or one of the things we've talked about, you can do higher doses like seven grams and seven grams to see the fastest results possible. And you can see how effective Gly-NAC is when you compare it to even liposomal glutathione or oral glutathione. Liposomal glutathione was slightly more effective than oral glutathione. Gly-NAC outperformed them greatly, but part of it had to do with the dose was so much higher.

• 28:18Josh Axe?

  So these are different studies. This is not a direct comparison. But again, if you want to get your glutathione levels up the fastest to the optimal levels, you need to do higher doses of Gly-NAC for about 16 weeks. Now, I do want to mention another way of getting glutathione into your body. And if you're severely deficient, it's maybe the fastest way to get your glutathione up. And it's with glutathione IVs. IV glutathione absolutely works at raising your blood levels of glutathione. In one human study, it increased plasma glutathione by nearly 47 times. And while that spike was short-lived, it does have a significant impact.

• 29:00Josh Axe?

  Now, in another study, this was done, this was a double-blind trial on patients receiving chemotherapy that were dealing with moderate to severe neuropathy. This occurred in 11 patients on the placebo versus only two patients who received IV glutathione after eight cycles. That's about 82% less neuropathy for those that took glutathione. And so what happens is when you go through chemotherapy, your body becomes so depleted in antioxidants. Think about it, chemotherapy is a toxin and we are flooding the body with a toxin to the point of almost killing the person, bringing them to the brink of death. And that will, in many cases, kill the cancer cells. But now your body is absolutely wiped out and depleted.

• 29:45Josh Axe?

  In fact, I just actually read another medical study that found that one of the biggest mistakes the cancer industry is making today is they're having patients do chemotherapy and radiation and surgery. And then afterwards, on blood work, their markers are all completely floored out, right? Right? Because your body's trying to protect itself. Your glutathione is absolutely on the floor, your zinc, your vitamin C. The body is completely depleted. And most oncologists and doctors never tell their patients how to rebuild those nutrients and heal their body afterwards. Now, what I do in my clinic in Nashville, Tennessee, in Franklin, is once patients go through as part of our integrative support, we have them follow a personalized diet that we put together for them to raise all of these nutrients that they need.

• 30:30Josh Axe?

  We also have them do certain types of IVs like glutathione and vitamin C to get their numbers back up. We also have them do things like hyperbaric oxygen therapy, because when you flood the body with oxygen, now it can heal so much faster. So if you know anyone with cancer or anybody that's gone through treatment, really encourage them, encourage them to watch this episode and really understand this part of the show, that they really need to make sure they do everything they can to fill their nutritional tank and do some of the right types of therapies in order to fully heal from the treatment itself. Now, here are some of those foods that would be the most healing for people. And these are ones I was very conscious when my mom was battling cancer that we had her eat constantly. One were sprouts, specifically broccoli sprouts.

• 31:14Josh Axe?

  Broccoli sprouts are high in sulforaphane. This is a compound that supports your body creating glutathione, of course. And then cruciferous vegetables are the next most powerful after broccoli sprouts. Kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower. And then number three would be garlic and onions. These are part of the sulfur family as well, again, high in cysteine. Eggs and clean protein like salmon, also great there. And Brazil nuts, high in selenium, also great for supporting glutathione. And then some of the most important cofactors for your body recycling or making more glutathione. So it's not just about glutathione, it's making sure that the machine works that creates glutathione. So again, you want something like glyknac or N-acetylcysteine.

• 31:56Josh Axe?

  In addition, selenium, vitamin B2, also known as riboflavin, magnesium and vitamin C. These are the things that your body needs that work collectively to create more glutathione. And then here's some other things that help build glutathione. Exercise, moderate exercise helps, deep sleep, sauna or infrared heat, and in many cases fasting. Now, what drains your body of glutathione the most? Here are the biggest things. Alcohol. Alcohol is the single biggest thing that drains your body of glutathione. Number two, acetaminophen and many other medications. If there's somebody you know, and every day or on occasion, they're taking Tylenol, but also things like ibuprofen, these NSAIDs, it's slowly draining glutathione over time.

• 32:41Josh Axe?

  And I actually think this is one of the single reasons why so many people are depleted in glutathione. And in addition, a very important thing to note, if you remember this, there was a, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came out with some news about a year ago about acetaminophen or Tylenol should not be used by pregnant mothers. Well, why is that? Why did he say that? Well, he said he saw a correlation between acetaminophen use and autism. Now, how could acetaminophen increase the risk of autism? Here's how. It used up all the mother's glutathione. This is protective for the mother. Based on these studies, it's obviously protective for the child. And if glutathione isn't there to protect you, what does it affect? The brain. So again, if you have a history or know anybody who's used a lot of acetaminophen or Tylenol,

• 33:23Josh Axe?

  know the reason why it's such an issue is it's depleting the body of glutathione. So taking things to support glutathione is a must. Number three, is sleep debt. This suppresses synthesis of glutathione. Number four, is smoking and vaping. Number five, overtraining. So you want to exercise, but not overtrain without recovery. And then chronic oxidative load, heavy metals, chronic infections, right? From mold or parasites, long COVID, those sort of things cause issues. A lot of inflammatory foods, fast foods, those are going to cause issues.

• 33:56Josh Axe?

  If you're only taking one type of collagen, you might be missing some of the benefits. I had somebody recently ask me, Dr. Axe, are you still taking collagen? Of course. You know, most collagen supplements use a single source. Multi-collagen protein, the one I've been using now for nearly 10 years, supports your hair, your skin, your nails, your joints, your digestion. And by the way, it's not just collagen alone that builds collagen. Multi-collagen protein contains vitamin C, which your body actually needs to synthesize collagen, plus 2 billion probiotics that support your body in doing that as well. With 20 grams of hydrogelized collagen peptides per serving, it's easy to absorb, great to use daily.

• 34:37Josh Axe?

  You can add it to coffee, blend it in a smoothie, or use it in any way in your routine. This is such a simple habit that improves everything from skinny elasticity to reduced joint stiffness. Right now, customers can save $10 using my code DRAX10. Make sure to take advantage to take your health to the next level with multi-collagen protein here from Ancient Nutrition.

• 35:02Josh Axe?

  So here's the game plan. Do these four things. Number one, close one drain. Pick the biggest thing that you know is draining your glutathione. Is it alcohol? Is it sleep debt? Is it overtraining? Be aware of that. Number two, add sulfur to meals, right? Cruciferous vegetables, garlic, onions, eggs, sauerkraut, sprouts. Those are fantastic, as we talked about, the number one food probably for boosting glutathione. Next, get the right blood work done, or ask for GGT at your next blood draw and make sure you're in that optimal range. And by the way, if you want to get the right blood work done, so you know where your glutathione levels are, you can go to cellrx.com. It's spelled C-E-L-L-R-X.com.

• 35:45Josh Axe?

  And they've got a great blood work panel on there you can do that will test not only GGT, but look at numerous other markers as well. They're the markers that matter that you need to know about. So again, that's cellrx, C-E-L-L-R-X.com. If you want to get the markers that matter. And then decide on one supplement. Again, I would encourage you, I think glyknac is probably the right supplement for you that's going to make the biggest difference. And then when choosing a supplement, look for one that has glycine plus N-acetylcysteine, probably the most effective in terms of the clinical studies, that's the most effective. And something else to consider, here are three mistakes I see people missing when it comes to glutathione. Number one, buying expensive glutathione before also fixing the drains or not doing both simultaneously, right?

• 36:29Josh Axe?

  If you start taking glutathione and then you are taking Tylenol every day, drinking a lot of alcohol and not sleeping well, yes, it's going to help some, but overall, you want to fix both of those simultaneously. Number two, is taking too low a dose of glyknac. Typically, taking doses of at least 1,000 milligrams each is going to get you the best results. And number three, supplementing without checking whether you're deficient or not. And that's why actually getting the right blood work and knowing your numbers is so important. And if you want to do that, you can go to cellrx.com. That's C-E-L-L-R-X.com. All right, now I do want to put a disclaimer here. N-acetylcysteine, okay, glutathione supplements can interact with, if you're taking blood thinners or nitroglycerin, okay?

• 37:13Josh Axe?

  Those are typically the medications you just have to be conscious of. Or as always, with almost every supplement, if you're pregnant, you need to be cautious and just check with your physician. And then typically, if you're on chemotherapy, most doctors will ask you to do that between your treatments, not within 48 hours or after you are done with the full care. And also managing kidney disease or liver disease, often the same applies because some of the treatments, you actually want to create oxidative stress on the body, or at least that's what doctors are trying to do. And the reason for that is, is some therapies, specifically cancer therapies, work by generating oxidative stress. They oxidative stress the body so much, they age it and damage cells to the point to where it actually kills cancer cells.

• 37:58Josh Axe?

  And that is going to blunt that sort of treatment. So you'd want to check with your oncologist before taking a supplement like N-acetylcysteine. If you remember only one thing from today, remember this. Don't just chase antioxidants, build the system that makes them. Give your body their raw materials, close the drain, and also check your gauge. Know where your glutathione numbers are. Know that your body is repairing, recycling and rebuilding every second of the day. And our job is to be good stewards and to remove what interferes with that design and give your body what it needs, which in part is glutathione, to help us reach our highest health potential that God created us for. And then again, I have that free gift for you. If you go to the show notes, I created for you my guide for detoxification,

• 38:42Josh Axe?

  which includes how to support glutathione levels and my top 25 blood markers guide that you can find there as well. So you actually know what markers matter and what should the numbers be? And what are some, also some natural foods and supplements that can raise those numbers for me? And finally, do me a big favor, subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show. And think about one person who needs to hear this episode and share it with them. Remember, build the factory, close the drain, check the gauge. I'll see you next time here on the Dr. Axe Show.